


Ghosts and Trolls

by lwise2019



Series: Mikkel's Story [26]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: The team is attacked by ghosts and flees into a nest of trolls.
Series: Mikkel's Story [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536739
Kudos: 8





	Ghosts and Trolls

They passed a quiet evening. No one complained about the food, which might have indicated that they had become resigned to it, but Mikkel thought it more likely that they were just excited about the plan to seek for the cure. Tuuri in particular was so excited she could hardly sit still, for if they had a cure then she and people like her would be free of the horror that lurked at the back of every mind. If they could have, they would have set out immediately, but she had to settle for obsessively going over the map, picking out possible routes for Lalli to scout.

The only troubling issue was the scout himself as he had been sleeping now for more than a full day. No one commented aloud on this, but Mikkel caught Tuuri casting a few anxious glances at her cousin, and Emil alternated between worriedly watching the scout sleep and giving Mikkel accusing looks. But what could Mikkel do? This unnatural sleep was not anything he'd been taught about in his brief career as a medic.

As the light failed, Mikkel thought the day had gone well, even with the dust-up with Sigrun.

His pleasant thoughts were interrupted by two events which happened almost simultaneously.

First, his pendant, which had faded into the background of his sensations, suddenly became painfully cold. Bewildered, he turned away from the others and tried to pull it out without attracting their attention, not wanting to give the impression that he was as superstitious as they were. But what was happening to it? How could it be so cold?

Second, Reynir, who had been leaning on the dashboard watching Tuuri planning their route as he ate, sat up straight and told her urgently, “We need to _go_.” When she didn't move, he went on, “Remember those spirits? At the place? Well they're here now and I dreamt that they were going to kill us and you need to drive us away from here! To somewhere else!”

Tuuri's voice was nervous. “Umm … calm down. First of all, the sun is setting, it's not like we _can_ go anywhere. But we might relocate tomorrow, so just ...”

“No no no, not _tomorrow!_ They're coming to eat us _right now!_ ”

“But we –”

“We've got to go _now!_ ”

Mikkel thought he ought to intervene, but the pendant was caught on his shirt and was so cold it burned. He had to get it out.

“Tell Sigrun!” The Icelander ordered.

“Uhh, Sigrun?” Their little linguist had switched to Swedish. “Reynir has a question … he says there are ghosts coming, so he _really_ insists that we drive somewhere else. Tonight, not tomorrow.”

“I … don't understand the question. There wasn't even a question in there. Is the question 'is he a moron?'”

“The question is: can we go somewhere now?”

“No! Are _you_ a moron? Have you noticed that it's evening? Tell him to tell the ghosts to go away if he's so bothered by them!”

Mikkel had the pendant out now and was examining it. It didn't feel at all cold in his hand; why had he thought it was cold against his chest? It was all the superstition around him, he thought, making him start to believe crazy things, like a pendant that was cold and then not. He dropped it a bit warily back inside his shirt. It felt normal, quickly warming with his body heat.

“Sorry,” Tuuri said in Icelandic, “Try to get them off your mind, they're _really_ probably not dangerous. Sigrun says we're not going, no matter what.”

There was a brief silence leading Mikkel to think the whole thing had blown over, before Reynir grabbed Tuuri's hands and forced them onto the steering wheel, commanding, “Drive anyway! Who cares what Sigrun says!? You're fine with breaking orders!”

“Quit that!” Tuuri yanked her hands away. “I think _you_ should go to bed.”

Reynir stepped back, fists to his cheeks, the picture of desperation. Mikkel took a step forward; this had gone on long enough and he needed to calm things down. Even as he opened his mouth, Lalli, who had been quietly sleeping, suddenly began to make inarticulate, strangled noises.

“See?!” Emil called, “Now he's choking! Would someone who knows what to do get _over_ here?”

Mikkel turned back that way – at least he knew how to clear an airway – but he had taken only a single step when the sleeper began to howl. The three in the front of the tank spun in alarm, Sigrun shouting, “Hey! Shake that guy awake! We can't have a blasting siren like that!”

“I'm trying! He won't wake up!” Lalli seemed to be trying to pull himself up, grabbing at Emil's hair and arm, though his eyes were still closed.

 _It's definitely time to drag him out and slap him awake ..._ the medic thought as he stepped forward, Sigrun saying “Well, try har –” Mikkel put his hands to his head; was that a voice thundering in his ears? “– der ...” Sigrun managed as she and Mikkel fell first to their knees and then to the floor.

* * *

It was only minutes later that Mikkel sat up carefully, rubbing the back of his head where he had toppled backwards into the wall. Across the tank, Sigrun was sitting up and feeling her nose, which was bruised but fortunately not broken, and back in the sleeping compartment Emil was picking himself up from where he had collapsed next to Lalli, who was now mercifully silent.

 _What on Earth happened?_ It took him a moment to realize that the humming he now heard was not in his head like that … _voice_ … but the sound of the tank fleeing at its miserable top speed. Sigrun caught on quicker, dashing forward to the front compartment, pushing aside Reynir where he knelt in the doorway.

“Don't be mad!” Tuuri said fearfully, “I had to! I'm sorry!”

“Stop talking and _focus!_ Find us somewhere to camp before the sun is down! And before you make us the target of every single living thing in this city!”

“Th—that's what I'm try—” Tuuri quavered before breaking off at the sight of two giant legs that stood just to the right side of their path. There was no time to stop, no way to dodge, and the tank struck the legs with a crunch.

The creature looked like nothing that had ever walked the Earth before the Rash: two long, multi-jointed legs each ending in a pad-like foot equipped with a wicked-looking spike, and at the other end, a kind of transparent globe enclosing the brain of the thing and two independently mobile eyes, all within an organic gel which splattered as the thing crashed to the ground. But there were more, many more, like it closing in on the tank.

Mikkel had never seen or heard of anything like these. They were clearly trolls – that is, grosslings that had once been human – since Beasts, which were grosslings that had been animals, tended to keep a semblance of their original form. That there were many alike was not entirely surprising; he had heard rumors that though trolls tended to take random shapes, if one person transformed into a troll, then other sick people around him had a greater chance of becoming trolls and, if they did, would transform into similar shapes. All these similar trolls, he thought, must have come from a hospital ward or some such.

“Keep driving,” Sigrun ordered as the tank drove over the downed troll's legs with hardly a bump, “We need to get out of the city _now._ ”

“Seems to me like you added the wrong person to your list of mutineers,” Mikkel put in, unable to resist tweaking her even in this dire situation.

“Shut up, Mikkel! Do something useful!”

“I don't understand what's been happening!” Emil cried from the sleeping compartment.

“ _Shut up,_ Emil,” she ordered, “Nobody else does either!” But then, looking at the mirrors and the gang of trolls following them, she went on, “Ready to bash some monster skull if I need you to?”

“Uhh, yeah, s–sure.”

They waited in silence as Tuuri drove on into the setting sun. They found themselves on a fairly clear street with a canal to their left and a block of relatively intact buildings to their right.

“Umm … ” the driver said uncertainly, and then fearfully “Eee ...” as she put the tank in reverse and tried to back away from a vast number of tentacles that completely blocked the road, rising from the canal and clinging to the wall.

“No, stop!” Sigrun ordered. “No turning around! We're going through here.” She had no desire to turn back and tangle with the two-legged trolls or anything else that might have been roused to follow them.

First, of course, they would have to remove the obstacle so Sigrun, Emil, and Mikkel went forward to see what could be done. With a deep breath, ready for anything, Mikkel brought his ax down on the first tentacle, completely severing it. There was no reaction from the rest of the mass. “Yes, this is dead,” he said, finding himself able to breathe normally again, “We'll have a gap cleared in no time.”

“Good,” the captain answered, looking over toward the sun, now nearly to the horizon. Turning, she added, “Emil, go keep watch out on the road, make sure nothing sneaks up on us while we take care of this. Feel free to kill anything you see.”

“Okay, I can do that I guess,” he answered hesitantly as he turned away, running his hand over his flamethrower and touching his rifle as if to reassure himself.

“But no gunshots, please and thank you.”

“Okay.” As he walked off, Mikkel could hear his dubious “Ooookay” slowly fading.

The chopping was going well and they were almost through, Sigrun chopping thinner tentacles one-handed with her dagger and Mikkel thicker tentacles two-handed with their only ax, when it all went wrong.

The ax struck deep, deep into a thick tentacle and drew blood. Before either of the explorers could move, most of the remaining tentacles jerked backward to the ice-covered canal, sweeping Sigrun with them. Her eyes met Mikkel's for just a moment and then she vanished into the water with a splash.

He leapt forward, falling to his knees to search for her, just as she surfaced crying “Oy! Hey! _Mikkel!_ ” There couldn't be a hint of desperation in the troll-hunter's voice, surely. “You're a pretty strong guy, you'll be able to pull me up with something, right?” There was no way he could reach her where she trod water below him, so he answered immediately, “I'll fetch a rope.” As he turned and ran for the tank, he heard her add, “Hurry up, it's getting a bit chilly down … here...”

Something had distracted her, he could tell, and he urgently wanted to pull her out before it – whatever it was – became more than a distraction.

“Mikkel!” she shouted again, and this time there was definite desperation in her voice. 

“I'm on my way, hold on!”

As he threw the rope to her, Sigrun, always the captain, instructed, “Tell Tuuri to start driving and get some distance between the tank and this place right _now._ ”

“Are you certain?”

“Yeah, yeah, we'll catch up on foot. A nice little evening stroll will be good for us.” She was halfway up, climbing the rope as she spoke.

“Drive!” Mikkel shouted to Tuuri, watching in terror from behind the wheel of the tank, “Follow the direction of the train tracks, they'll lead you out of the city. Go!” he added, as she continued to hesitate.

“And don't stop until you find a place to camp!” Sigrun shouted, almost within Mikkel's reach.

The tentacle swept up and smashed down on Sigrun, ripping her off the rope and almost pulling Mikkel in after her. He fell backwards as the weight came off the rope, but immediately leapt to his feet, peering over the side in complete disregard of the danger of more tentacles. Where was she?

She came to the surface for a moment, was promptly struck again, went under, came up, was struck, went under, and did not surface again. Mikkel hurled pieces of paving at what he could see of the troll. “Hey, you, you … _monster!_ ” he shouted, “Look over here! _Please..._ ”

He couldn't swim. He didn't know if Sigrun could, though she had come up twice, so maybe … He took a deep breath, steeling himself to jump into the freezing water, when a pebble struck his head from the right. Confused, he turned to see Sigrun climbing a metal stair that led down into the canal, coughing and hacking but very much alive. Greatly relieved, he quite unconsciously reached for her, beginning to say, “We have to –” but then they both heard the grinding, tearing noises as the massive troll began to pull itself up the same stair.

It was time to run. “Emil!” he shouted, but as they turned to flee that way, they found Emil running towards them, a dozen of the biped trolls chasing after him, all of them on fire.

Mikkel looked around wildly. Canal to the south, unbroken walls to the north, water troll west, flaming trolls east – _It is the end. At least we are all together. We did have a good run. I hope they find the cure._ He pulled Sigrun to him, swept Emil in with his other arm, and prepared to die.


End file.
